Chapter 6
The temperature began to drop sharply as night set in. Somewhere, a twig broke and leaves rustled. The distant calls echoed again. Boughs shook, shivering leaves. saplings splintered. It sounded as though a tank was shouldering in from the outer woods. A dreadful, blubbering roar whooped out of the dark.
The Wendigo curse was laid down long before recorded history, afflicting anybody who resorts to cannibalism. But once it had a carrier, it spread. Every decade or so they had to be culled, or they'd become too powerful and rampage, slaughtering and consuming everything they found, devouring entire cities. This was a big one, an old one who'd probably never been human. It's fur was white and shaggy, although it was so matted by filth and viscera it was almost impossible to tell. Bones sharpened it's face into a confusion of misshapen angles, and a mass of slavering fangs the size and shape of chisels. The rest of it's twisted frame bulged with knots of muscle. Even it's claws and teeth showed an unnatural health. They gleamed in the dark like seasoned ivory. It's chest was wide as an elephants, although the ribcage beneath it had obviously been shattered and badly reset, time after time. But for all the broken symmetry of it's hunch-backed build, the thing moved with an eery grace.
They could smell it, smell the rancid sweat-stink of its mass, smell the sour blood and meat rotting in it's vast maw. It growled again, holding itself low so that it could get a good look at it's prey, then let out a deafening, trumpeting roar, exhaling bad air and blood vapour in a mighty gust.
Deadpool stared at the Wendigo as it lopes slowly towards them, closing the distance deceptively fast. "I have a plan." he announced boldly. "Don't make any sudden moves until I say. Then you step forward and try to befriend it, and I'll run."
Slade grinned beneath his mask, and stepped back to the car, groping about. "What are you talking about? This is better than Christmas!"
It charged them then, bounding forward on four limbs as often as two, thundering like an elephant.
Slade found his gun, turned, and opened fire in a single, smooth movement.
"Wow, it sure is lucky that your arms dealer was having his semi-annual, lazy story-telling, free instant delivery deal." Wade said from the sidelines. "No, wait, I tell a lie, we got these guns and explosives from Savage. Gee, it was so much easier when I had my thought captions to keep track of things and I didn't have to say everything aloud."
Conventional weaponry had not kept up with genetic engineering. That was a fact of life. These days, for the fights that really mattered, the soldier mattered more then the equipment, yet ironically post-humans tended to be impossible to secure a steady supply of. While there were more post-humans every week, most of the factors that led to their creation were not replicable, as much a result of circumstance as human understanding, and those who did come up with something that could be used to destroy an entire city, inevitably found that the only market for them were, for the most part, people mad enough to want to attack someone who could push over a sky-scraper. There were exceptions, the scottish armsdealer Destro had a roaring trade in the sort of black market firepower for anyone determined enough to take on the more extreme metahuman, inbetween stealing his competitors technology and selling it to terrorists, and provoking wars to sell technology to both sides of the conflict, but most people kept things conventional. An ordinary kinetic weapon was nice, but Slade was as dedicated to being well-armed as he was to keeping in shape. Which was why what he pulled out was entirely custom-built and one-of-a-kind. It was big, and bore a passing resemblance to a snub-nosed Sub-Machine gun. Except it was three times the size, had three clips, and fired proportionately sized bullets.
Nitro express cartridge with a velocity of two thousand F.P.S and a striking energy of four tons. It would drill through Kevlar like it wasn't there. A clip of seventy, and a rate of ten bullets a second. There was little that could withstand that sort of firepower. Unfortunately, what he was fighting was such a creature. Certainly, the monster's flesh tore, burst and exploded. Grave wounds ripped across it's torso and upper arms, and two deep dents appeared in it's forehead.
But it didn't seem to care. It didn't even seem to notice. It just kept up it's loping charge, smashing towards the mercenary, coming through the woods like an avalanche.
The thing brought it's arms down on Slade, giving him nowhere to go. Blocking would have broken bones, but he knew he could place his hands on the inside of it's massive wrists and roll its hits away. It's jaws snapped at him, and when he hit it with the butt of the gun it closed around it, ripping the gun from his hands and shearing through the steel with ease.
Apparently, it wasn't going to make it easy for him. He drove his fist into where it's kidney should be, and felt as though he'd just tried to put his hand through a bank vault, breaking a few of the bones in the process.
It batted at him again, and Slade ducked under it, one of the Wendigo's huge paws, claws extended, whistling over his head and missing him by inches. It was fast and strong, but fought entirely by instinct. It was so fast and strong, that it had never had to learn how to really fight. Slade drew the desert eagle he wore at his hip, and fired every shot into the side of the monster's skull as he backed away, hitting it in O ring every time. The thing didn't even feel them, they bounced off it's skin without so much as a scratch to show for it. They really built them sturdy up here.
Shaking it's large, sloping head, the Wendigo turned to look at him with it's glinting, piggy eyes.
Clip out. Another in his pocket. Half a second to load, not that it made a bit of difference. Small arms fire wasn't going to do a thing, besides waste ammunition. He knew it, but he kept it up anyway, if only to keep it's attention focussed on him. This time he went for the eyes. It irritated them and shook it, but not enough. Not nearly enough.
The thing lifted itself to it's full height, rearing up, raising an arm so thick, so corded with muscle that one blow would pulp every bone in his body. It fixed it's gaze on him, It's eyes red and swollen but still quite usable, then brought it's fist smashing down in a clumsy but deceptively quick move. Slade waited until the last moment, then dived aside, turning it into a tightly controlled roll and back on his feet in a moment. The ground shook a little at the impact, and the monster scooped up a bucket of mud from where he'd been standing moments before. It roared again, a raging, phlegmy rattle, this time in frustration, then glared at him again.
Slade opened fire, the bullets slamming into its throat. Heavy, hard, a serious and sustained assault. He might as well be hurling insults for all the good it was doing, but he kept it up. Any moment now…
Deadpool suddenly appeared in midair behind the Wendigo, propelled by a jump that must have required a run up. He seemed to hang suspended for a moment, frozen in place, before landing astride it's hunched back with a grunt of effort, and grabbing hold of it's mane with his free hand for purchase. The monster shook and buckled, trying to shake the man off it's broad back. But Deadpool clung on, and drove the sword into it. It wasn't an ordinary sword, one of the two he usually carried around, which was just as well. No matter how fine, an ordinary blade would have done nothing at all, except maybe shatter on the monsters ridiculously durable and sturdy body. No matter how sharp, they wouldn't have been sharp enough.
But this was a special sword, one of two weapons they'd been given to kill a man who had so far proven unkillable. This was the previous property of a mutant called Scott Summers, entrusted to him by Wolverine, and acquired with some difficulty by Vandal Savage, and entrusted to the two of them. The amplified blade was magical in nature, monomolecular, and cut cleanly into the monster's body. If he'd hit the backbone Wade was sure he'd have severed it, and chances are he'd have killed or crippled the beast. Unfortunately, he didn't quite manage that.
The Wendigo let out a mournful wail of pain that shook it's entire body, then turned back to find out what had hurt it so. A copious amount of black, stinking blood gushed out of the deep punctures that Wade had put in it's back.
Deadpool hung on for dear life to the handle of his sword, flapping around as it shook itself, trying to dislodge the source of it's pain. Then he let go as it slammed it's back against a tree, splintering the trunk and knocking it over with a groan of tortured wood, and driving the sword even deeper into it's body, as Wade let go and slipped through it's legs with sensational agility. He bopped and weaved as it flailed, hurling insults and non-sequiturs, then one of it's arms clipped him, sending him flying to smack wetly against another tree with an audible crunch of breaking bone.
"Hurts…" He let out, his chest appearing deflated as his broken rib had punctured a lung.
The beast opened it's mouth. The stink hit him like a body-slam. It was going to lunge forward, a biting strike. Wade was almost immortal, but he was petty sure when those huge killing jaws snapped forward and closed it would be lights out forever.
"Kiss me, Harvey. Or maybe kismet, whatever works for you." He said, figuring at least his last words would be memorable if a little derivative, then blinked, as it abruptly flailed, and fell hard on it's face, as if it had tipped as well. It landed so suddenly that it's lower jaw smashed into the loam and slammed it's gaping mouth shut. It had come down less then a meter from Wade's outstretched feet.
It wasn't even slightly dead. It thrashed and roared, reaching with it's huge arms, its maw snapping and slicing the air. Deadpool scrambled backwards out of reach, and fumbled for his gun. Why had it fallen down? Why the hell had it fallen down?
And why in the name of Jack Kirby had it's roaring, bellowing sound become so wretched, so shrill, so in pain?
Before he could try to get his thoughts straight, the Wendigo heaved itself again in a mighty surge, rising on massive arms, muscles bulging, veins prominent like cables. Curds of foam glistened on it's drawn lips. It lunged at Deadpool.
Deadpool finally got his pistol out of the holster, and fired into it's gullet, watching as silver darts punctured the ribbed, pink roof of it's mouth. He realised belatedly that he'd grabbed the wrong one. It was loaded with tranquillisers. Admittedly, darts fired with the sort of force that could crack an engine block, but not much use in this instance.
He dropped the gun, and gave up, resigning himself to reforming inside a digestive tract, when the Wendigo quivered, spasmed, convulsed, and then fell over on it's side with a jolt that seemed to rock the ground.
An almost silence fell. The only noise was the last tremulous breathes rattling phlegmatically in and out, before it gave a last gurgle, then stopped. It was dead. Really dead, it would probably be hard to be more dead without special training.
Slade switched off his quarterstaff, both ends stopping the menacing glow they had exhibited when he'd driven it into the base of it's skull and cut of it's vertebrae, and stepped out from behind it, reaching down and hauling Deadpool to his feet.
"OK, how come you killed it and I just made it mad? And why did you wait so long to intervene? It could have killed me!"
"I killed it first, didn't I?" Slade replied. "Before it chomped on you."
"And how did you do that? I used the magic sword and it only got pissed off."
"Not the weapon. It's how you use it."
"Oh, very mature. Going to take out your dick and measure that too?"
Slade ignored the profanity. Wade fell silent, as he realized he'd just articulated a profanity, rather then the usual collection on meaningless symbols. "It's just an animal. It has anatomy, and so it has weakness. It has hamstrings, so I cut them. It has a spine, so I cut it off. It wasn't vulnerable to a direct attack, so I hit it where it was weak. You know, rather then hack at it's center-mass."
"Yeah, yeah, save it for the next apprentice." Deadpool says, his body already more or less back in working order, if you called what he had working. The Cancer would kill him, and the Healing factor would overwhelm him and kill him as it rampaged out-of control through the vital systems of his body, and the only reason neither had yet was because they were too busy fighting each other to actually finish the job, if anything disturbed that, he'd die. As long as nothing did, he'd survive anything. "You know, I didn't have to save you. I was going to just teleport away, but then I remembered I wanted to see how my new sword works."
"Not bad, I'd say." Slade replied, pulling the blade out of it's back. Thick, dark blood squirted out, hitting Slade like a pressure hose. Even covered in blood and gore, the sword gleamed. It had punctured a kidney, Slade noted. The thing would have died eventually from Deadpools blow, if given long enough. He handed it back to Wade, then turned to the Wendigo to make sure it wasn't getting up. Apparently, frying it's nervous system had done the trick. It's wounds weren't closing, though given the steady rate of blood loss, it's heart was still beating, which shouldn't be possible. Then again, it was a magical creature. Who knew with them? Perhaps it would eventually get back up.
"So, a Sasquatch you reckon? Or a wendigo?"
"What do you mean?"
"There was an episode of the Discovery Channel on the difference. Wendigos eat people, Sasquatchs avoid people taking photographs, or something."
"Well, it tried to eat you, so my money is on wendigo." Slade spat on it's corpse, then hefted his staff meaningfully. "Waste of time." He said, disappointed at how unsatisfying the diversion had been, then trudged back to the car, and looked down at the engine, which had cooled long since. Then he closed the hood, walked into the seat, and tried again.
The jeep made a nasty grinding sound, then roared to life. The engine sounded decidedly unhealthy, but it was running.
"Well that's convenient. Apparently, us trapped in the wilderness isn't interesting once we've done some with the violence, so things are being arranged to move along. This medium really doesn't do periods of waiting between periods of excitement so well."
Slade ignored that, because it sounded like Wade was talking to his imaginary friends again. Wade continued addressing the readers who always followed him around everywhere, wanting to observe his life. Shameless hero worship.
"Now that we got the side story out of the way, lets go find and kill Wolverine, and you can tell me why this is so important to you."
"I told you to drop it." Slade growled.
"And I ignored you. Duh."